Engineering Gangnam style

Gagnam Style, the Korean Pop sensation taking the world by storm, has moved its catchy beat up to the next level--artificial intelligence dancing robot style.

Gagnam Style, the Korean Pop sensation taking the world by storm, has moved its catchy beat up to the next level. Artificial intelligence dancing robot style.

Yes, folks, we seem to be swinging our way into the singularity, as CHARLI the humanoid robot demonstrates in a YouTube video, bopping away to the beat, more convincingly, some would argue, than most average human club-goers.

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When CHARLI, designed to be ultra-light weight (under 15 kgs) and low cost, isn’t strutting its stuff on the dance floor, it can sometimes be found playing soccer, having been designed to participate in the autonomous robot soccer competition, RoboCup, in the adult-size league.

CHARLI-2, the second model in the series is even famous for its impressive active stabilization strategy based on sensory feedback (filtered IMU angles, gyro rate readings and proprioception information based on joint encoders.)

Stabilizing torques at CHARLI’s ankle joints are applied based on the sensory information, and can adjust to successfully reject external disturbances. Though it is probably as disturbed as the rest of us are by the catchiness of the Gagnam tune.

Since we’re on the subject of electronics and the catchy hit from Korea, here’s another example of Gagnam madness, with a Halloween twist:

YouTube user EdwardsLandingLights said it took him over 8,500 lights and roughly 250 channels of computer animation to achieve the effect.

“This is a hobby and the display has been in the making for about year,” he wrote, adding that the addition of the Gangnam Style video was “a last minute addition” made possible when other forum members shared a vocal programming sequence with him.

“I tweaked it some, added the backup singers, and sequenced the rest of the house and yard props myself.”